Kate Chopin’s short story “Regret” depicts one instance in the life of an elderly, unmarried woman. A spinster by choice, Mamzelle Aurelie lives on her farm with her animals, her dog Ponto, and “the negroes who lived in her cabins and worked her crops”. Aurelie is accustomed to life on her own and able to run her farm because of the many masculine characteristics that she possesses, but the unexpected arrival of her neighbor’s children changes her. She is forced to confront her feminine, nurturing side, and while it does not awaken a complete change in the solitary matron, it does begin to make her regret some of the choices she has made in her life.

From the start, Mamzelle Aurelie is described in masculine terms. She has “a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks” and “a determined eye”. She wears “a man’s hat”, a “blue army overcoat”, and even sometimes “top-boots”. There is no femininity in her description, nor does there appear to be any desire to become more feminine. The typical markers of femininity, in both appearance and character, appear to be missing. She is unmarried with no desire to change that fact and she finds the appearance of Odile’s children to be “unwelcome”. Aurelie is content in her world as overseer of her farm and manager of her workers. This is re-enforced by the fact that Aurelie is unmarried by choice. She had received a proposal and rejected it, meaning she is not unmarried because she was unfit or lacking, she is unmarried because she wants to be that way.

The arrival of Odile’s children, which is “so unexpected and bewildering” to Aurelie, slowly works a change over in the woman. Left with Odile’s children so that Odile can visit her ailing mother, Aurelie first treats the children like she was their superior officer and they were soldiers. When she is first left with the children, Aurelie determines “upon a line of action which should be identical with a line of duty”. She is rational, collected, and deals with the situation in a...

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...became more independent in their lives without the need of men to support. But the question is that was this change good for women or not? The American author KateChopin gave an example of those independent women in her short story "Regret". In the story, a woman called Mamzelle Aurelie lived alone in her farm. She has never got married and never had children. But one day the silence in Aurelie's life was broken as she carried the burden of looking after her neighbor's four children for two weeks. One might ask how could she manage to take care of these children since she never had one? In the story Chopin describes the difficulties Aurelie faced and how she finally managed to deal with the children, also how she felt after the children left her alone. In "Regret", Chopin uses this description to explore the change in Mamzelle Aurelie's character before and after the arrival of the children and her regret at the past.
At the beginning of the story, Chopin describes Mamzelle Aurelie in masculine terms. She was unmarried and never thought of getting married. She was a middle-aged woman with a rugged appearance. "She wore a man's hat about the farm, and an old blue army overcoat when it was cold, and sometimes topboots" (Chopin 1). She was strong and capable in her every day life. She had a "determined eye" (Chopin 1), and she...

...KateChopin, the author of “Regret”, was born on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was born to Thomas and Eliza O’Flaherty, as Katherine O’Flaherty. Chopin’s father died in a train accident when she was five years old and she grew very close to her mother and great grandmother. She was one of seven children, and she outlived every one of them. At the young age of nineteen, she met and married a man by the name of OscarChopin. They were married in 1870, and moved to New Orleans. In 1882, after his cotton business failed, Oscar Chopin developed Swamp Fever and died in 1883. The family’s plantation had been moved to northwestern Louisiana, and Chopin was suddenly a widow with six children. She originally started writing to cope with the pain of the losses she suffered in her life, but later tried to gain money to support herself and her children. Chopin was never able to earn much money from her publications, but instead earned her money from real estate she owned in Louisiana. Her novel, The Awakening, was criticized greatly because of its controversial topics of sex and feminism. The novel was not accepted during her time and many male reviewers were very harsh about their opinions of the story. Kate Chopin’s life ended at the age of fifty-three on August 22, 1904 from a cerebral hemorrhage.
In Kate Chopin’s time, women were extremely...

...Regret by KateChopin
In the short story "Regret" by KateChopin a woman called Mamzelle Aurélie has to keep a neighbour's four children for two weeks.
Mamzelle Aurélie is an old and lonely woman. She has never had a man and lives alone on her farm with some animals and Negroes working for her.
Because of a dangerous illness of her mother, the young neighbour has to leave and couldn't take care of her children anymore. This is why Mamzelle Aurélie, who has never ever has children before, has to keep them.
At the beginning she has great problems with managing those children. But after she a short period of time she starts realizing that humans need more than just food and a place to sleep at. She really starts to develop a relationship to the children.
Now as the two weeks are over and the children go back to her mother she becomes very sad and starts crying.
In general you can say that the author is using a very descriptive language. By contrast the language used in the dialogues is probably some kind of old slang. But still you see that at the end the relation between Mamzelle Aurélie and the children and the language used by the author develop analogue. The relation gets very deep, while the language changes from an objective and dry language to a nearly poetic style of writing. Proof of this can be found in the text, for example the slimily of one the children's "warm breath...

...﻿Jennifer Tressler
Regret by KateChopin
In the short story "Regret" by KateChopin, a woman named Mamzelle Aurelie has to watch a neighbor's four children for two weeks. Mamzelle is an old and lonely woman who never believed in love or marriage. She has never had a man, nor been married, and lives alone on her farm with some animals. She also has African Americans, or "negroes", who work around her house for maintenance. Because of a dangerous illness that her mother acquired, the younger neighbor had to leave, and could no longer watch after her children. This is where Mamzelle comes in, who has never had children before. In the beginning, she has great problems managing the children. However, after a short period of time, she begins realizing that humans need more than just food and a place to sleep. This is when she really starts to develop a relationship with the children. Once the children return to their mother, Mamzelle cries very heavily in remorse.
In the beginning, Mamzelle is described as "a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks" and "a determined eye". She wears "a man's hat" and "a blue army overcoat". and even sometimes "top-boots". From her brief description, it is clear that there is no femininity, nor does there appear to be any desire to become more feminine. Before meeting the children, there was no desire to become more feminine, until realizing what she had been...

...﻿
Analysis
In "A Respectable Woman," KateChopin delves into the psychology of Mrs. Baroda, a wealthy woman with a loving husband who faces temptation in the person of Gouvernail, a polite, unassuming visitor to the Baroda plantation. Like the heroine of "A Pair of Silk Stockings," Mrs. Baroda is enticed early in the story with the prospect of a change from a quieter, more ordinary life, but whereas Mrs. Sommersgives in to her desires with relative ease and begins spending her extra money after limited deliberation, Mrs. Baroda does not instantly recognize what she really wants and eventually struggles with the self-imposed limitations of her identity as "a respectable woman."
Nevertheless, just as the narrative implies that she has found the strength to triumph over her emotions, Mrs. Baroda approaches her husband and offers a sweetly ambiguous statement that reopens the question of her intent to act upon her emotions. She tells him, "I have overcome everything! You will see. This time I shall be very nice to him." At first glance, this statement seems to suggest that Mrs. Baroda has regained control of her emotions. Overcoming "everything" seems to mean that she has overcome not only her displeasure about Gouvernail, but also her unrespectable romantic feelings. However, because she modulates her announcement with the insinuation that she will be “very nice” to him on his next visit, she may mean that after overcoming her doubts and her...

...Analysis of THE KISS by KATECHOPIN
By contrasting the room's "deep shadow" with the daylight that still exists outside the house, the first paragraph of "The Kiss" establishes a dark, intimate atmosphere while implying the presence of secrets and illicit emotions. This imagery thus foreshadows the revelation that Nathalie is plotting to marry the good-natured but unattractive and rather foolish Brantain while maintaining an affair with Mr. Harvy. Brantain's character is reminiscent of several other men in Kate Chopin's stories, such as Brently Mallard in "The Story of an Hour" and Gaston Baroda in "A Respectable Woman," in that Brantain is portrayed as a well-meaning and not dislikable man who loves his eventual wife but who fails to be desirable to her. Yet, we tend to feel little or no sympathy for the man because Chopin tells the story through the eyes of the female protagonist, who has her own aims.
Unlike most of the heroines of Chopin's stories, Nathalie does not face any emotional trials or true mental conflict. Instead, she acts as a woman who has already realized her potential and ability to satisfy her desires and who now tries to adjust the actions of those around her in order to suit her wishes. In a way, Nathalie takes the hidden motivations of Chopin's protagonists and takes them to an unpalatable extreme, since Nathalie here is portrayed as having a calculating, imperious nature. Even so,...

...story of an hour – Katechopin
* This short story is set in the 19thcentury and shows the tension between female characters and the society that surrounds them. Margaret Baurer suggests Chopin is concerned with exploring the dynamic interrelation between men and women. And women and patriarchy, even women and women. She users gender to contemplate feminine identity and at the same time to critique patriarchal society that define and limits that identity, being primarily concerned with the way gender roles deny identity
* The story is set in the 19thcentury at a time when a woman was judged by her husband neighbours and society and women’s identity was constrained by expectations of purity, virtue and domesticity. This domesticity relegated women to the home, denying them intellectual and professional capabilities
* In the story Mrs Mallard becomes aware of her own desires and of a feminine self that has long been suppressed as the result of her husband’s death. As a result she attempts to create and identity that conflicts with gender constraints of a patriarchal society
* It demonstrates through his process the control of female experiences as a result of masculine privilege that limit the individual and stops them achieving a self and accepted feminine identity that is unique. The shaping of expectations as a result of gender is seen when Mrs mallards condition is described as a congenital weakness that is...

...KateChopin: Seeking Freedom
Who comes to mind when the term “American author” is mentioned? A lot of female authors of today would say KateChopin, one of the most independent writers of the nineteenth century. Although KateChopin didn’t live to see her work re-published, she is an important author to study because her stories are influential, her ambition arouses her readers, and her point of view supports independent women.
Unlike most of the women during her time period, Chopin didn’t agree on letting the men be in control. After a couple of her stories were published in Vogue Magazine, like “Desiree’s Baby” and “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, people began to start liking Chopin’s short stories (Powell). Vogue had even quoted how they “admired her brains and beauty” (Powell). It wasn’t until Chopin decided to give more of her belief of independence and write her first novel “The Awakening” for people of that time to start disliking her. Publishers cited what they considered “promotion of female self-assertion and sexual liberation” (Chopin, Kate - Introduction). Libraries banned Chopin and her friends shunned her as her reputation started to fall. KateChopin may influence women today, but during her social period she wasn’t looked upon by many.
Born into a prominent St. Louis family,...